Government Technology

Three of Montana’s eGovernment Services were just recognized as award winners by the Center for Digital Government. The “Best of the Web” awards rank the top U.S., state and local Web services, recognizing advances in digital solutions. The awards showcase progressive and innovative Web sites and digital applications by governments worldwide.

The episode highlighted growing friction over crowdsourcing: a trendy term for contests that invite public submissions, usually for a creative project, and let voters weigh in.

Nearly all portals based their changes on citizen preferences derived from systematically collected data. Here’s a look at the 2009 winners and what propelled them to honors on the red carpet.

So how Open is your city? And if not, do they have $2,000 lying around to change that?

Utah state government is preparing a private cloud that will offer hosted e-mail and Web applications to cities and counties within the state.

Governors of all U.S. states and territories received an offer this week from NaviNet, a commercial health information exchange (HIE) provider, to develop a branded portal through which regional HIEs, hospitals, insurers and others in the health-care industry could exchange medical information.

Once published, covered entities and business associates will, as a practical matter, only have 30 days to comply with the new rules—a very short time and one which will force them to work very diligently to comply with the new rules.

"Now, when I get put on hold – and absolutely, I get put on hold – I whistle," Governor Schweitzer said. "I whistle along."

“With these programs, we begin the process of creating a national, private and secure electronic health information system. The grants are designed to help doctors and hospitals acquire electronic health records and use them in meaningful ways to improve the health of patients and reduce waste and inefficiency.”

"Fun" is not how some might describe interacting with a local government’s planning department.